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Topic: CB550 Brat/Cafe (Read 24215 times)

Well...this is my rebuild thread for Pepper. Plans are pretty simple in sound, execution may be a different story. Earlier this month I had the pleasure to meet a handful of great folks at Kanticoy's(Kiley's and Denise's) house for Barbers Vintage Fest. Besides the usual chit chat I was secretly plotting my build and gathering info on parts I don't have experience with.

This is my 2nd 550 and it came with a great list of wonderful parts out of the box and up until now I've only put on a few new items and performed mostly maintenance to get the bike back to road worthy condition(sat in a shop for roughly 2 years). While it seems I have a plan for this build, really it's just a lot of ideas that will change as I begin to really work on it. First things first is the cosmetic appearance. I'm going to attempt glassing myself. Start with the seat and possibly go on to other non structural components.

Newest mods/workRebuilt front caliper...then again at Kiley's(still squeaks)Replaced the RC engineering pipe and "F" header with the full Yoshi rep(great build quality and sounds amazing with no drone at highway speeds!!! Worth every penny)Shortened the tail section about 4"Polished Engined covers

Shortly after I got it(cleaned and road worthy at this point, not that is was bad to begin with)

You can get this setup from moto gpwerks. It's a bit pricey compared to most systems but well worth the coin IMO. You can sometimes find the guy selling them on eBay. I suspect they build them one at a time.

Yea they are awesome, can I ask what size u have in the front and rear, and also what was involved in getting them to fit?

Wheels were on the bike when I got it. Front is a 19 and rear is a 16, you can find 18" rears too. Hard part is locating a front. The beauty about these wheels is that they are designed for this bike. Uses stock rear drum and allows for dual rotors up front. From what I can tell and what I've compared to my spare set of spokes is that they bolt up with no modifications. Hope that helps.

I made little progress today. Mostly sized up wheel options and did a little prep work for the seat.

I started off with some foam block building, but that's it..(actually did this part yesterday)

Today's actual work was mostly starting to clean the rear spoke wheel. The front is in great shape, the rear....not so much. I went with grade #0000 steel wool and your basic turtle wax to get the surface cleaned up. It's looking pretty good but I need to disassemble the wheel and I will spend more time on it once completed.

I did however make a command decision that I am going to keep the Henry Abe's and use the spokes as back ups. The HA's are going to get refinished in Honda Racing gold if I can find some or at minimum get the PMS color so I can get some mixed. Anyone have any suggestions??

Here's a shot with the spoke on the rear...

No wheel

I also discovered that the rear sprocket on the Abe's is a 43 woot! One less item I have to procure. I need to check the front now.

The last thing I did was weigh each wheel with tire and no brakes. I was surprised to find that the HA's weighted in more. I do suspect the tire that is currently on there isn't helping. I will weight again when the new tires go on.

Spoke 18"

Henry Abe 16"

Outside of that it was a pretty chill day and I'm still trying to get a feel of how I want the finished product to look. I think once I start shaping the seat I'll be able to make the call on how she will be dressed up from that point on.

You need to get inside "Carl". Those who hung out desperately want to know what is inside that engine! I think you may have a real sleeper there. Your 16'' rear ABE rear hoop may be problematic to find performance rubber for it, no question, they're quite rare and very beautiful. Maybe for "Little Talledega" you might want to run 18" spoked wheels with a pair of fat Bridgestones BT45's.

I've heard the Yoshimura replicas up here in the frozen North and the sound is truly magnificent. Can't wait to see inside the beast, forget the seat and open her up (just kidding). Very nice looking bike.

Kemp - Thanks for the kind words and I truly appreciate you letting me pick your brain while at Kiley's Garage. The engine does get me excited every time I think about it. I will be pulling the top end off soon enough to take a few measurements and get an idea what I'm working with. I hope the shop wasn't pulling my leg on it, and me being the skeptic I am...... lol

Not much progress has been made. Started breaking the spoke wheels down for rebuild. Looking into my options right now. I will be doing new spokes and hoops at minimum; since there's no tires I've got a few options I am considering for size. I am thinking stock width in front and 3" in rear. I'm also considering doing 17" front and rear for better tire options.

Mothgils(Andrew) and I built the "KIT" workstations over the weekend at his place to help keep things a little less....painful on the backs and help with organization.

I still need to pick up casters to make mine mobile like Andrew's, however just using it as a basic work bench last night and today was perfect to sit and do desktop work(as seen above).

I also began a deep clean/reorganize 5S type setup for the garage. It is forcing me to redo some of the main work bench to make it flow better...mainly easier to get a beer out of the fridge while wrenching haha and give a better, more permanent home for the welder verses sitting on top of the bench. I hope to have that finished up by the middle of the week. I will be adding a few more bikes by the end of the weekend and really need to have everything in order so these projects don't get over cluttered.